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Hey baby wanna come back to my place and see . . .

the heater in my chicken coop? Probably not, but just in case this is helpful, here’s what it looks like.

We got this “Econo-Heat 0603 E-Heater” (as always, no affiliate link), which is described as a “400 Watt Wall Mounted Electric Panel Heater.” Honestly, when I was in the throes of freaking out over how cold it was and I went online to order a heater for the chicken coop, I had no idea what I was doing. I’d been reading everything I could find online, which mostly said you don’t need a heater in your chicken coop, which to be fair you totally don’t but I’m a ridiculous softy when it comes to animals and was not prepared to live with myself in the comfort of a heated house with beer while I’m imagining my ladies out there freezing, which they’re totally not what with being birds and all but see discussion above about me being a ridiculous softy.

The good news is this heater I somewhat randomly selected is super awesome. It works perfectly, is securely attached to the ceiling of the coop (done by Ben — he used the bolts that came with the heater and added a 2×4 to the ceiling to line up with the bolts — I hope that makes sense — I am not good at describing these things), and doesn’t freak me out too much in terms of potentially causing a fire. Of course, any time you heat your chicken coop, you have to worry about the risk of fire, but I think this is a pretty safe way to go. Before the heater arrived, we set up a red heat lamp (like you’d use in a brooder) in there and that, even securely attached, worried me because it just seems kind of unsafe, plus I worried about the chickens not sleeping well with extra light in there (I am a freak).

As I mentioned before too, we also got a “thermostatically controlled outlet,” which I’d never heard of before, either. It turns the heat on when it’s 20 degrees and off when it’s 30, which is plenty warm for chickens.

As you can see from the second photo above, we also have a heater under the water to prevent it from freezing. If it gets cold where you are, I recommend one of these regardless of whether you heat your coop, because you don’t want frozen water.